More About CalPHIN

Vision

Provide timely and secure access to quality public health data for surveillance, analysis, and decision making, respecting the confidential nature of private information.

Background Information

California is committed to adopting federal standards as put forth by the PHIN and NEDSS initiatives:

In 2001, the Department assessed specific State-level information systems to determine their degree of compliance with the eight NEDSS technical architecture elements.

In 2003, the Department put forth the CalPHIN Strategic Plan which provided a roadmap to enable the State to develop a public health information network that better collects and manages public health data in a manner that promotes consistency, reliability, timeliness, and accessibility.

In 2005, the Department began to implement several PHIN-compliant initiatives, including the Web Confidential Morbidity Report (WebCMR) and Electronic Laboratory Reporting (ELR) projects, the California Health Alert Network (CAHAN), and the CalPHIN Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) project. The CalPHIN Initiatives website explains these and other initiatives in further detail.

Key Characteristics

Clearly defined vision - The vision statement and target end-state will illustrate where California's public health system wishes to go in the foreseeable future.

Achievable scope - Initially limited to communicable disease control with the big picture (e.g., entire public health system) in mind.